Let them be ignorant of death, and miffed by the gross solemnities of entropy, eternity and quantum creep.

Grant me peace in this, my first and only suit. Close the plain pine lid and lower me down.

Let them be curious, perhaps fearful —

Gather them over me to wonder: what is rite and why?

Let it – all of it – be alien to them, distant as violence, truth, sorrow. Let nothing be heavy and the sky so clear.

Blast them with aromas of Spring and skin; befuddle them with magic, laughter, pheromones and song.

Celebration of lips and hair; lusty minds a-flirt with promises –

I’m done with all that. I wish them well.

Some critics have called Yizhak Maplebury “a poet of no small importance.” Others have called him “a small poet of no importance.” Little is known about Maplebury as he exists beyond the page. Unproven rumors have abounded that he was (and perhaps still is) a notorious gang-land/CIA hit-man, code-named, “The Egghead,” whose method of dispensing “justice” (for those who pay – him – unto those who most egregiously fail to pay the ones who pay -- him) inspired fear in the hearts of even the most jaded power-brokers on the world information/money market. The notorious NYC mobster, Boss Parcheesi, for instance, was mysteriously abducted from the locked vault he'd had himself sealed into, only to be found, what remained of him at any rate, in a New Orleans tobacco store, in a tin of what an unsuspecting, quite obviously horrified, customer had assumed, upon purchase, was a can of vacuum-packed, safety-sealed, fine Virginia pipe-tobacco. Again, these allegations are unproven. Anyway, what does it matter what Maplebury did – or does – to earn his “living?” We modern readers are not concerned with the life of the artist, but the value of the work... Read other articles by Yitzhak, or visit Yitzhak's website.